Not the immaculate conception

I am a visual artist, mother of two children aged 12 and 4, and co-founder of the MeWe arts collective. I intend to use this site to explore how my personal experiences as a mother informs my arts practice. To reflect upon the maternal in relationship to memory, loss, and mental health in particu…Read more

4 Responses to “Not the immaculate conception”

Frances Earnshaw

It made me think of how even before a child is actually born, you can be keeping a record of your body and what it is doing.

In the centre sits in pencil, “1st day last period”. It made me think, I have a free app on my phone that I’ve used for a while now to keep track of what my body is doing. Before that, I never even thought to acknowledge any pattern, let alone write it down on a piece of paper. Through the app, my cycle becomes like a game where I fill in data and it reveals patterns and things over time.

Jasmine. I sort of became obsessed with trying to work out when my first baby had been conceived. The realisation of being pregnant was really rather shocking. I was very excited about having a baby but terrified too. I wanted to be able to pin point the exact date when he was conceived. These notations that I used in this drawing were my scribblings and workings out. I never really did work it out. I wonder what it must have been like before scans and apps and birth control pills. I guess women must have discovered much later on down the line that they were pregnant. There was no peeking in no having a look, they met their babies when they were born. I liked the scans, I liked sneaking a peek, made it all seem so much more real and tangible. Strangely when I was pregnant with both my children I often felt very detached from the fact that I was growing a baby inside my body. Your app sounds helpful, I think I may need to get one, I struggle to predict when my periods will fall.